Simple Kind of Life
Right now I’ve been experiencing a fair amount of stress in my life. Well, as much stress as a single guy with poor eating habits, late night sleeping habits, and lots of church and work pressure.
I recently told a church member that I couldn’t commit to helping with an activity. That’s how stressed I am.
To me, one indication of how complicated my life has become is the amount of keys on my keyring. In the ideal world, I’d have only three keys. One for my apartment, one for the truck and one for the mailbox.
Right now, my keyring is a jumble of keys. Keys to Church buildings, keys to offices. Too many keys.
Right now I’ve been attempting to cut back on anything that I see as complicated. I threw out using a wallet a year or so ago. Anyone have any ideas?
Any ideas at de-stressing? (And no, eating lots and lots of chocolate is not a option).
Well, at least yet.
Hmm. These are the strategies I’ve been using the last couple months:
– Whatever gets set down stays there and is promptly forgotten & ignored. I have piles everywhere. The 3 weeks of laundry I did 2 weeks ago is piled on my spare bed. Apparently I don’t need them.
– Put any mail (except bills) in a pile to be looked through and filed at a later date. There is a few months worth of mail piled on my desk. Hopefully there isn’t anything imminent in there I should be following up on, such as those notorious wedding announcements.
– Don’t bother with unnecessary chores, such as grocery shopping. You can survive on juice and condiments, right?
– Adopt the motto “I’ll think about that tomorrow” (Ahh, Scarlet O’Hara, the Queen of Denial).
– Babble incoherently about the thoughts racing through your head and the things you have to do. People tend to look at you strangely and leave you alone. (But they don’t ask you to do more stuff, right?)
– Postpone plans with friends to preserve sanity. My friends are pretty understanding, as they have cancelled on me occasionally too. Of course, sometimes they just come over anyway and deal with incoherent, emotional, crazy CG and it somehow helps.
Well, hope these strategies help! Of course, if you don’t hear from me in awhile and people start to ask “whatever happened to CG?” in a few weeks, SEND OUT A SEARCH PARTY! It will probably mean the piles have overpowerd me and I’m too weak and delerious from the condiment diet to dig my way out!
;0) CG
PS – Seriously though, remember what is most important to you and put that first. For me its the people I love. If I start putting the stupid tedious things before them, I know I’ve lost my perspective and need to reprioritize.
Oh and I forgot another strategy! Spend time at work blogging instead of doing paperwork, because its always helpful if your behind at work as well as in your personal life! At least then things are consistent! ;0) CG
I say get a man purse…I mean you aalready dumped the wallet…now take the next strp. It may not de-stress you but it will make many the girl laugh.
If I can’t suggest chocolate, I got nothin’.
I have no answers. But when you figure out the trick, could you let me know? Cause its 10 pm at night, I’m in a hotel room, working on a service project, and responding to work emails. I need to relax!
i always see it as a matter of perspective.
Think about it. 🙂
Wait–isn’t the purpose of a wallet to keep things organized??? (hence de-stressing)
Hardy, your problem is that your life is all about “YOU”. So here is what I recommend and I guarantee it will lower your stress level, increase your testosterone level and lead to a much happier and less dramatic life. Ladies, stop reading here. Go and pick you up one of your lady friends. Make sure she’s a girly girl. Take her tonight to the opening show of the new P&P movie. Buy her some popcorn, soda and something sweet (skittles are swell). Make sure you are in a new theatre with stadium seating and reclining seats, and just recline back during the movie, and instead of watching the movie (cuz why would you, you already know how it ends), just watch the girl. Watch her giddiness as the movie starts up and watch how the emotional roller coaster she is about to ride affects her facial expressions. Enjoy her smiles, anticipating giggles, her scowls, her tears of frustration and tears of joy and love. See if she sways or bops her head during the dancing scenes and if she still gets that look and sense of relief when the boy gets the girl and the girl gets the boy in the end. Watch out for those looks of anticipation and excitement she’ll throw your way, you don’t want her to know you are staring, as that would be rude and possibly creepy if she found out. Feel free to take a nap or two, if your eyes get tired, but DON’T SNORE, whatever you do. Make several runs to the snack bar, to keep her sugared up and if she isn’t quite “feeling” it, get her a Mt. Dew or a Coke. Now, the most important part is this. Since you are familiar with the other versions, you need to spend a couple of minutes actually listening to the dialog and pick up on at least 2 minor variances between this movie and all the rest. This way, when it’s all over and she asks you what you thought and you tell her you enjoyed it immensely (and you won’t be lying) you can follow that with your own analysis. “I found it interesting that in this version…..” and then you can say which variance you enjoyed the most. Whatever you do, make sure she tells YOU which version, as a whole, she likes better first, or you’ll be caught in a P&P version war which you cannot possibly win. Whichever one she likes the best, is your favorite too…get my drift? After the movie, she’ll be on an emotional high, so no point in wasting it, go get some ice-cream. And don’t cheap out at Baskin-Robbins, go for the good stuff at Marble Slab, or Maggie Moo’s or something. After that it’s up to you, but once you get home and are laying in bed, reflect back on the 2 hours in the theatre of what could have been absolute misery and realize that by focusing all of your energy on her, you actually enjoyed a chick flick, and not just any chick flick, but P&P of all things, and you got some ice-cream out of it, so it was even better. Then think to yourself, life isn’t so crazy or bad. As long as I can see a beautiful girl giddier than giddy because of “me”, then it’s all good. It’s a beautiful thing, I tell you.
I’m pretty sure that my blog today will make you laugh.
Don’t be stressed. It’s not worth it.
I’d also reccomend a good cry, but since you’re a boy you might not find solace in it.
feel better!
~w
Take a nap underneath a lovely blanket on a comfy couch. That’s what I like to do when I’m stressed out. It seems to work. Either that, or eat an entire batch of cookies. But the nap is definitely healthier. And if all else fails, spend two hours at Barnes & Noble–even if you don’t buy anything.
Feeling less stressed, thanks ya’ll